


What Death Forgot

by GalaxyOwl



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eight Birds, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOwl/pseuds/GalaxyOwl
Summary: Kravitz doesn’t remember a lot about his old life. He has some vague images of a childhood in some city he can’t recall the name of; a half a sense that he spent a long time in school. Not much else. He thinks it must have been a long time ago indeed.(Or: the AU where Kravitz was on the Starblaster.)





	What Death Forgot

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, like, last December, and then never posted it. so, uh. here it is, I guess?

Kravitz doesn’t remember a lot about his old life. He has some vague images of a childhood in some city he can’t recall the name of; a half a sense that he spent a long time in school. Not much else. He thinks it must have been a long time ago indeed.

He does remember dying. The town of Hillfrost torn apart by something that shouldn’t be possible, his home ripped apart by something akin to a force of nature, and then _pain_ and—

Well.

Technically speaking, Kravitz isn’t dead.

He isn’t really alive, either, but that’s beside the point. It simply wouldn’t do for the emissaries of the Raven Queen to be in violation of the very laws they’re upholding, would it? Instead, the rules are… bent a little. He’s stuck in an in-between state, his body suspended at the very moment that he _should_ have died, his heart frozen, unbeating.

But really, it suits him just fine.

***

Despite what the official sources would have had you think, the Starblaster mission was something of a mess, in terms of organization. The crew roster wasn’t finalized until the very day of that first and last press conference.

Kravitz, of course, had known from early on that he was going to be a part of it. He was the IPRE’s top planar expert (or so said the administrator who came to talk him into going), and the mission had to have him. He didn’t take a lot of convincing. He’d been studying their sister planes for years, but to see them firsthand—that would be something else entirely, wouldn’t it?

Kravitz was introduced to the captain not long after, a gnome man by the name of Davenport. Then there was Lucretia, the archivist; Barry, another scientist; Merle; and Magnus, the latter of whom wasn’t brought on until a week before they went public.

They were gathered at a conference room, at IPRE headquarters, discussing some inane detail of scheduling, when there was a knock at the door.

A beat of silence, each of them glancing at the others—who was it? Who was going to open it?

Barry stood first, and pulled open one of the double doors. Outside stood a pair of elves, who entered without question or introduction. Barry started to stammer something out, but Davenport flipped through some of his papers and said, “Lup and Taako, I take it?”

“Right on,” said the male elf, and took a seat across from Kravitz, who found himself staring. “What are we doing here again?”

***

The job is… unusual. A floating necromancy science lab, coated in crystal. Crystal that’s self-perpetuating, spreading, dangerous. There are living people there, too, people that the records say are repeat offenders, and others, and Kravitz doesn’t know how all of it connects but it doesn’t really matter.

He has his job.

And if he has some unexpected resources at his disposal, then, well, he’ll make use of them, won’t he? Make the situation work in his favor. No need to get involved on his own just yet, and—hah, yes!

This could be easier than he thought. He gathers himself to enter the fray, still abstracted, intangible—

and there’s a moment, there’s always a moment, when Kravitz dissolves his primary form, and there are thoughts tugging at the ends of his mind, images of places he’s never seen, people he’s never met—

and then he pulls together a form from the crystal, and he is physical, and the thoughts are still there, if he reaches for them, but they’re less insistent. The memories of the dead, he thinks, messing with him. He needs to focus.

***

It was the last night before the mission, and Kravitz had been casually informed by the cute elf man—Taako, his name was Taako—that the others were going to some bar, and did he maybe want to come with them?

He’d accepted. It wasn’t like he had any other plans.

He wound up sitting in the corner with Lucretia and Merle, nursing a glass of gods-knew-what. Merle made a few vague attempts at conversation that quickly fizzled out. Lucretia barely looked up from her journals.

Kravitz was distracted from watching the paint dry on the wall by a series of shouts from across the room, and looked over to see Magnus embroiled in a fight with a trio of humans. Lucretia looked up at the same time as him, and watched with wide eyes as one of the guys decked Magnus in the face.

She grabbed her journals and stood, headed closer to the fight, keeping only barely to the sidelines.

“The hell is she…?” Merle jumped to his feet, and then he was off after her. “Lucretia! Don’t!”

Kravitz stared. He should go help, shouldn’t he? But how? He’d be no use in a fight, he knew that much. All he could do was sit here and watch and pray his crewmates didn’t get themselves killed or anything.

Kravitz flinched as a bottle went flying past him and shattered on the far wall. Should he leave? He wasn’t sure he could make it to the door if her tried. Maybe coming along at all was a bad idea.

“Hey, handsome.”

Kravitz started. Taako was standing only a few feet away from him, wearing brightly-colored shoes Kravitz would’ve sworn he hadn’t had earlier.

“Uh,” Kravitz said, “hi.”

The fight continued—was that a fireball?

“You’re the hotshot science guy, right?” Taako said.

“Yes,” Kravitz said, despite the fact that the description could describe at least half the crew, Taako included.

“Remind me of your name again?”

“Kravitz.”

“Well, Kravitz,” Taako said with a grin, “I look forward to having the chance to get to know you.”

***

The elf points his umbrella at Kravitz. “Hey thug, what’s your name? I’m about to tentacle your dick.”

***

The world ended. The eight of them kept living.

***

Kravitz rounds on the trio of adventurers. “Let's see, let's see. Taako. We'll start with you.”

He stares at the face of the elf—Taako, he knows, died eight times, he has all the facts, but still. Taako. There’s something… There’s no logical reason he should be any more of a worry than the other two, but Kravitz can’t tear his gaze away. He’s attractive, okay, yes, but that’s not all of it. There’s something else. An air of familiarity, like trying to remember something out of a dream, but even that thought slips away as soon as it comes.

Focus, Kravitz.

“Taako, you’ve died eight times.”

Taako shrugs. “That tracks.”

“You’ve died eight times, and—“ He breaks off. The book— _the_ book—is open in front of him, the bounty’s profile displayed in clear, dark letters. Except… There’s one number, down towards the bottom. _Times entered/escaped astral plane_. When Kravitz had looked earlier, he’d been sure it had been a zero. These idiots had somehow died 84 times between them, and never checked into the afterlife. But now the page is flickering—zero, then two, then zero again and back. Somehow, both of those things are true.

No matter.

“ _And_ ,” he continues, “that is, frankly, unacceptable—“

***

Sometimes Kravitz would look up in the middle of writing out notes and just watch Taako work, the look of utmost focus on his face. A stray strand of hair fell as Taako bent down to check something, and as he reached up to tuck it back in place he made eye contact.

Kravitz ducked his head away and went back to his work, cheeks burning. He had no reason to be embarrassed; it wasn’t as if Taako knew how long he’d been staring. Or that there was any significance to it—maybe Kravitz had just been lost in thought.

But he hadn’t been. He had most definitely been watching Taako, and he’d be lying if he said just watching him didn’t make something in his chest tighten with a quiet longing.

***

He has Taako’s location. So, he goes. Taako and Magnus and Merle’s death toll spiked earlier today, but then, so did a lot of people’s, and, well, someone has to get to the bottom of this. It’s Kravitz’ job. So he goes.

He steps out of the rift into—it looks like a dorm room?—and stumbles as a wave of nausea hits him. He catches himself against the wall, and turns to examine the room. There’s nothing obviously unusual about it, but there’s a buzzing static coursing through his head as he takes in the scene around him, his eyes barely able to hold onto the sight. But it’s just a dorm room. Just a living space.

Where is it?

Kravitz is half-tempted to leave, to explore and get his bearings before coming back here, but he has a job to do and there’s no way of knowing when the room’s occupants will return. He needs to be there.

So he sits on the couch, and he waits, and he tries to ignore the way his head is swimming.

The door swings open, and there’s Taako. He’s alone, and some irrational part of Kravitz is glad. If it had to be just one of them, he’s glad it’s Taako, although he couldn’t tell you why.

“We need to talk, don’t we?” Kravitz says. He should stand, should look the dramatic figure, but he isn’t sure he trusts himself to stay on his feet just now. So he doesn’t. “‘Cause you boys… You’ve added quite a bit to your death count, haven’t you?”

“That one’s on me,” Taako says. He crosses the room. “I mean, there are less-creepy ways of getting my attention than appearing uninvited in my living room, but yeah, this time I do know what you’re referring to.”

“I’m going to ignore your sarcasm,” Kravitz says. “Do you have something to say for yourself? Or is this going to end in a one-way trip to the astral plane?”

Taako takes a seat on the couch beside him. His posture is much too casual for Kravitz’ liking.

“I’m hoping no on that last one,” Taako says. “But, uh… Okay. So, you… You gotta know it wasn’t just us this time, right? I’d assume whatever your source of information is, it also knows that. It was this whole town…” He explains then, about Refuge, and the loops, and the dying.

Kravitz has never heard of time magic that powerful before. “Do you know what caused it?”

“Oh. Shit, right, should probably start from the beginning. The—“ Taako’s voice cuts out into static, and for a moment Kravitz just stands there, staring. His mind must be playing tricks on him, somehow.

There’s something about this _place_.

“What?” Kravitz says.

“The—“ More static. Taako pauses, watching Kravitz, and says, “Is it going all static on you?”

Kravitz nods.

“Huh,” Taako says. “That’s a little weird, not gonna lie. The general consensus had seemed to be that the ---- doesn’t work on dead people.”

“ _Death_ doesn’t have to mean _dead_ ,” Kravitz says.

“No idea what that’s supposed to mean, but okay.” He pauses. “I… guess if you really want I can try to explain around the censors. Not sure how much help that’s gonna be to you.”

“Try away,” Kravitz says. Static at the back of his head, nausea in his stomach; the same static in Taako’s voice. He needs to understand but he can honestly barely think, can’t put together the whole picture.

Taako nods. “There’s these… items,” he starts. What follows is a frustrating and sometimes circular conversation. Careful generic word choices from Taako, probing questions from Kravitz. Sometimes he has to ask Taako to repeat himself not because he’s hearing static but because the ambient confusion of the room is finally getting to him; sometimes he trails off mid-sentence. Taako is polite enough not to comment on it directly.

They’re sitting next to each other on the couch, probably closer together now than is strictly necessary. Kravitz gets the answers he came here for, if only in fragments and broad strokes. He still doesn’t quite know what to do. He’ll have to consult with the higher-ups, see who else has been looking to this Refuge situation. He will do that. Soon. But right now, despite everything, he isn’t really sure he wants to leave.

He’ll stay and talk just a few more minutes. It’s been a long time since Kravitz has had anything resembling a casual conversation.

***

Kravitz had some notes out in front of him from an earlier cycle; he’d had the vague thought that he might try to go through them again, try to make sense of _something_. But really, he was just watching the waves crash on the beach. The rhythm of it was steady, soothing, and he closed his eyes and let the ocean breeze wisp past him.

There were voices, further up the beach—Barry, he thought, and Taako. He could only catch snatches of their conversation. Judging from the content, that was probably okay. It sounded private, Barry speaking in hushed, quiet tones.

But the beach was quiet too. And he could still hear some of it.

“Barry,” Taako was saying, “Barry, you’re locked in and this wave’s crashin’ all around you, my man and I— I don’t begrudge you… anything.”

Kravitz opened his eyes. He could see the shapes of the two of them not far off, silhouettes in the dark, and his gaze lingered over the faint form of Taako’s face.

“You know, we’ve lost a lot, and there’s a lot more we might lose, but the one thing we do have is the thing that people in love rarely ever have enough of, and…” He trailed off, his gaze landing on Kravitz, who turned away so his eavesdropping had a chance of being less obvious.

“Taako?” Barry said.

“And it’s—it’s time.“ Quiet for a moment, and then a shuffling in the sand as Taako stood. “Hey, uh, sorry Barold, I gotta… I’ll see you around.”

Footsteps, approaching.

Kravitz turned. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” Taako paused. “So, I’m gonna go ahead and assume you heard all of that.”

“Most of it, yeah.”

“Awesome, that’s awesome. So, uh, totally unrelated, but, what do you say you and I… I don’t know, hang out sometime?”

“I’d like that,” Kravitz said.

***

Kravitz raps his fingers on the table in the cafe. Outside the window, a light rain buffets Neverwinter. Taako’s late—or was he never planning on showing up at all?

Taako contacted him first, which was the last thing Kravitz had expected. He’d suggested a meeting place on the—well, on the moon, that’s where his mysterious organization worked, on the moon, only it wasn’t really the moon, only that thought didn’t make sense when Kravitz looked directly at it—and Kravitz had insisted they choose someplace on the surface. He needed to be able to think.

This cafe had been Taako’s suggestion, too, and Kravitz hadn’t cared enough to push against it. It makes sense, after all, that Taako would prefer somewhere public—maybe he assumed Kravitz would be less likely to try anything violent. He shifted in his seat. Maybe he should have pushed it. There was a _mundanity_ to this place that made Kravitz on edge; he normally spent as little time amongst the living as possible.

So why had he agreed to this in the first place?

He does need to speak to Taako, it’s true. He’s fairly certain everyone involved in the Refuge fiasco is going to be pardoned, and Taako and his friends deserve to know that. But still. That doesn’t necessitate meeting face-to-face. And Kravitz is the one in power here; there’s no reason for him to do this any way he doesn’t want to.

But he didn’t want to argue with Taako. He wanted to see him. It’s nice to have a job to do that isn't so urgent or deadly.

“Hey, handsome.”

Kravitz jumps.

Taako takes a seat across from him, as if he hadn’t noticed Kravitz’ surprise.

They talk.

The rain has slowed to the lightest of drizzles, but the sky is still clouded; only a few brave stars manage to poke through.

And then—

Then, well, Taako’s umbrella malfunctions. And if that wasn’t Taako doing it, it was something else, and, oh hell, now that Kravitz is looking for it he can’t believe he’d never sensed it before.

“There’s something here.”

***

Some sort of insect whizzed past them, and Kravitz reached up a hand to shoo it away. He glanced back at Taako, standing a few feet behind him and watching with an unimpressed air.

Kravitz took another swipe at the foliage in front of them. It was slow going clearing a path, wandering this bizarre alien jungle, and he still wasn’t convinced a scythe was at all the right tool for the job. But the villagers had insisted, and now it was all he had, the thing awkward and heavy in his hands.

“We’ll never get anywhere at this rate,” Kravitz muttered.

“It’s okay, dude,” Taako said, stepping towards him. “We’ve got months left before the Hunger gets here. We’ll find the thing.”

“Maybe so,” Kravitz said, taking a whack at the vines in front of him, “but I’d still rather not to spend all those months wandering through this damn jungle.”

That got a smile out of Taako.

A faint sound of shifting undergrowth froze Kravitz in his tracks. He listened, and there, again—someone else was nearby. Could they have wandered too far, run into Magnus and Barry on their own jungle path? It wasn’t likely.

“What’s…” Taako started to say, and then stopped, and he and Kravitz both saw the same thing at once: plants shifting of their own accord, a thick knot of thorny vines snaking towards them across the ground, already wrapping around Taako’s foot. Kravitz brandished the scythe at it, not sure what he would do if this turned to actual combat.

“It’s a plant, I doubt it’s going to register your threat,” Taako said, “but thanks anyways, Krav.” He whispered something, his attention focused, and for a second the plant stopped; it looked like the spell had worked. Then he muttered, “Fuck,” as the thorns squeezed tighter—was that blood?

Kravitz ripped at the trailing vine with his scythe, and it cut in two but the part around Taako’s leg didn’t stop moving, and then something was on him from the shadows of the trees, a vine threatening to strangle him, cutting across his back with sharp thorns. He writhed and pulled at the thing, but breathing was getting harder and he’d dropped the scythe in his surprise, and this wouldn’t be the first time Kravitz had died but hell if he’d let it happen anyways—

Then the thing exploded in a burst of flame as whatever magic Taako had been trying to work finally took effect. Kravitz blinked and surveyed the scene: charred pieces of vine scattered across the ground, surrounding both him and Taako, who still had his wand outstretched in a battle posture; he relaxed his stance as Kravitz met his eyes.

Then he passed out.

Kravitz dropped to the ground beside him. “Taako!” No response. “Are you all right?” Not even a flicker.

Heart pounding, Kravitz reached down and felt for a pulse on Taako’s wrist; he thought he found one, if only faintly.

He had to get back to the village, back to the Starblaster. Merle—or someone, anyone—could heal him, and he would be fine, and they’d keep trudging this fucking jungle for the next three months and Kravitz could live with that as long as he didn’t have to do it alone.

He bent down and tried to lift Taako’s unconscious form; he had a vague image of walking him back, Kravitz taking his weight, but there was no way Taako would be able to walk even with support, and there was no way Kravitz was strong enough to carry him.

He sat on the ground besides Taako’s body, in the ruins of the plant monster that had attacked them. He could go back alone, but that would require leaving Taako unprotected for hours, and there was nothing to say there weren’t more where that thing had come from.

Kravitz gripped his scythe, and stared out into the jungle, daring anything else to hurt the elf he loved.

Time passed. Minutes slipped towards hours; Taako didn’t get worse, but he didn’t get better, either, and the shadows around them began to fill out. Kravitz couldn’t see in the dark, and he couldn’t cast magic, either. When night fell, he’d have nothing but the moon—did this planet have a moon? Maybe he’d get lucky and it would have three or four. Hah.

Someone would come. Or, they wouldn’t. Or, Kravitz would die here. Or, well… His head swam. Was it that late? Was he that tired? Thoughts refused to form linearly: all he knew was that Taako was hurt and he had to stay here, had to had to; in the fading daylight he glanced down at the ground and caught sight of the purplish tinge of the dead plant creature’s vines.

The villagers had warned them about that plant. They’d said it was poisonous. Venomous, more like, Kravitz though, and then found himself laughing at the thought.

Darkness fell. Kravitz' thoughts were sluggish and Taako’s breathing was slow and uneven,and the next thing Kravitz knew he was dragging himself out of sleep as the sun rose above them, snuggled close to Taako’s still-unconscious form.

Kravitz stared at Taako’s face. The eight of them had been together years now, longer than he’d like to count, and he knew every detail of each of their faces, but Taako—Taako was different, wasn’t he? There was something about him that Kravitz could never quite pin down, the quirk of his lip as he joked or the long, tangled hair.

An impulse came over Kravitz. He leaned down and kissed him—

and Taako’s eyes fluttered open for just a fraction of a second—

and then he went still.

Kravitz dared to hope, for a moment, checked his pulse again, and then again, whispered his name. Kissed him again, because maybe this was some twisted fairytale and that was all it took to wake him up. Taako didn’t move again.

A few hours later, Lup found him, standing over Taako, half-delirious from the effects of the plant’s poison. She walked him back to where the others were waiting. They left the body for the plants.

***

Kravitz is pretty sure he just went on a date. He’s relatively certain at this point that that’s what that was, and that should be a problem but all he can think is that he wants to do it again. He wants to see Taako—charming, beautiful, funny Taako—again, as soon as possible.

***

The hole in the mountain glowed.

“Kravitz?” said the official, turning towards him. “You were going to submit next?”

Kravitz nodded, and stepped forward, the sheet music clutched tight in his hand.

When he was a kid, Kravitz had wanted to be an orchestra conductor. He wasn’t sure where he originally got the idea, but somewhere along the way he’d picked up that mental image, of a man waving a baton, and music pouring from the crowd as if he’d cast a spell. But he’d never been much good with music; it was never the path his life had been going to take.

Still, when they’d decided as a group that petitioning the mountain was the best way to get to the Light of Creation, he’d known right away what he would do.

Kravitz set the sheet music on the pedestal, and fished a small stone out of his pocket.

The idea of picking up an instrument had terrified him more than he’d like to admit. It was too personal, too uncontrollable. So instead he and Taako had worked out this: a stone that played out the notes programmed into it, a machine that sang his notes for him. The music instructors had eyed him dubiously, but he had to think that it would count. The tune was still his, after all.

He set the stone on the pedestal atop the paper, and let it play.

It was a simple melody, really, quiet and hesitant despite all his efforts. Kravitz glanced behind him, trying to read the crowd’s faces, but none of them told him anything until he looked back at Taako and saw the smile that flickered across his face.

A flash of light, and the paper and stone both were gone, and the memory of the music a fuzzy hole in his mind, and terror clawed at Kravitz that the song was _gone_. It hadn’t been perfect, or even amazing, but it had been something he’d made and now it was—

The tune sounded from the mountain, echoing through his mind, and Kravitz gave a sigh of relief, and stepped back, moving until he was part of the crowd once again.

Next was Barry and Lup. Kravitz hadn’t seen much of them this cycle; they’d been hidden away in some other section of the music school, working and whispering together, and as they stood with their instruments readied, Kravitz didn’t know what to expect.

He definitely didn’t expect what he got. It was a song like magic, like whispers, like love, two chords intertwined into a perfect harmony, and the the whole time neither Lup nor Barry took their eyes off the other. Kravitz thought back to that overheard conversation on the beach, to the way Lup’s eyes lit up when she talked about Barry, the way they moved sometimes in a single unit.

They were in love in a way that no others had ever been, so many years of togetherness, and as they played Kravitz' gaze wandered the crowd and found Taako, still watching his sister perform. Kravitz lowered his eyes. It was silly to even have the thought, to make the comparison. He _liked_ Taako. He liked kissing Taako, liked watching him, liked listening to him talk about cooking or magic or whatever had captured his interest this cycle—yes, Kravitz felt something for Taako that he didn’t feel for the others. But this? This song that Barry and Lup were playing, this was some soulmate shit. This was something he couldn’t _dream_ of.

The mountain, of course, accepted it.

***

There’s a lich on the loose.

And a clever one, too—it took Kravitz far longer than it should have to notice at all, and something that powerful is not easily hidden. But somehow, they’ve been hiding.

The lich was there at Lucas’ lab; he sensed its presence but hadn’t paid it attention, because that place was a crowd of undead and an individual signature was easy to overlook. But it had been there. And it had been in Goldcliff, several months prior; there’d been a spike of necromantic magic that Kravitz sensed from a distance, on a job many miles away; but by the time he’d registered it, it was gone. (It was, he thought, a different lich from the one that he’d sensed on his date with Taako, and thank the gods for that, really—that one, it seemed, was even better at hiding.)

But now the lich has finally made a mistake.

There’s this tiny town a few miles from Neverwinter. The

re’s been rumors, Kravitz learns, of strange goings-ons; things people do and then can’t explain, a man wearing an odd necklace. Whether any of this is connected to the lich or not is anyone’s guess, but as Kravitz steps through the rift into the town, he knows the lich is close.

***

“Just stick with me here,” Kravitz said, addressing the gathered Starblaster crew. “We’ve been doing this for… a while, yeah?”

“72 years,” Barry muttered.

“Right.” Kravitz took a deep breath. “And so far… we’ve saved some people. Not all of them, but some, but, we haven’t stopped the Hunger.”

“I think we’re all pretty good on that point, Krav,” Taako said. “Think we’re all pretty aware of that.”

Kravitz winced. “Yes, right, well…” Where was he? He’d been trying for months to figure out how to broach this plan, and now that he was here his words seemed to have deserted him. “So, what I was trying to get to was that, well, I think it’s worth taking time to consider what variables we haven’t tried changing. And…one of the things we’ve always done whenever we arrive in a system is head straight towards the prime material plane.” He had the planar system diagram laid out on the table, and gestured toward it now. It seemed kind of silly suddenly. “But there are other places—there are other people we can save.”

“Did you have a particular plane in mind for this… plan?”

Kravitz hesitated. “I was thinking the astral plane.” He paused, expecting some reaction but not sure what. When no one said anything, he plowed ahead. “We were able to save all of those souls from the robot planet. With the crystal. And, well, it’s too early to say, but if my understanding is correct, it’s possible that undead souls from the astral plane could be subject to very different rules when it comes to the Starblaster’s… situation. And possibly the Hunger, too.”

“So let me get this straight,” Magnus said, “You think we have a better chance of saving people if we go to one of these other planes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m in.”

Kravitz smiled.

Lucretia looked up from her notes. “You can’t be serious. We have no idea what going to the astral plane could even mean, what that would be like—“

“Which is why we should do it,” Kravitz cut in.

“Everything we’re doing is dangerous, Lucretia,” Davenport said. “If Kravitz is right, we should at least hear him out.”

“Regardless,” Lucretia continued, “The reason we’ve always gone to the prime material plane is because that’s where the Light of Creation always falls. We can’t abandon it for this… experiment.”

She was right, of course; it wouldn’t be easy. He hadn’t thought it would be. But the idea had been eating at him for months now, and they had to try. They had to do _something_ different, didn’t they? But he didn’t know how to explain this.

“Well,” Taako said, leaning in and inspecting the papers with the diagrams, “it seems to me that’s not too much of a hurdle. I—you know, I fully support Kravitz' plan. I say it’s time we split the party.”

***

He tracks the lich to an abandoned house on the edge of town. Enters—slowly, quietly, carefully—and finds them in a room on the second floor. They’re hidden, obscured from mortal sight, but Kravitz can see the thing clear as day. A skeletal form in a long red robe.

Kravitz steps forward, brandishes his scythe.

The lich turns, and sees him, and says, “ _Kravitz_?”

Kravitz actually flinches. He stares at the creature. Have they met before? But no, he’d remember a lich this powerful. He’s sensed his presence before, but his voice is unfamiliar, and there is no way—no _way_ —he’d told this thing his name.

Could Taako have told him? He and his friends were the only others who could’ve, but—no, no, Kravitz couldn’t believe that, couldn’t let that be true. But he knows it somehow, doesn’t he?

Kravitz tightens his grip on his weapon.

“You’re—I—you’re the grim reaper?”

“…Yes,” Kravitz says. He doesn’t know what’s going on here, but this at least isn’t information he has trouble parting with.

“And you—you died. In Hillfrost. I didn’t find you in time, I was still looking for Lup, I should have…” The lich trails off. “But I guess the afterlife must be treating you well, huh?”

“How the hell do you—“ _Know about Hillfrost?_ was the rest of the thought. But he shouldn’t be giving this abomination the time of day. What he knows doesn’t matter. “What are you talking about?”

He shouldn’t even be asking. He shouldn’t be wasting time talking. This lich is right in front of him, he should just get him now, take him back to the astral plane and call it a success. But he needs to know what’s going on here.

“Kravitz,” the lich says again. “It’s me, it’s Barry.” He stops. “You don’t remember?”

Kravitz starts to ask, _Who are you?_ and stops himself. The lich is undead, so when did he die? He finally has a name and a face and a voice, and he reaches for his book with his mind and summons it, pages through until he finds what he’s looking for—and has to stop the surprise from showing on his face.

Barry Bluejeans, died twelve times. Times escaped astral plane: 6. Times escaped astral plane: 0.

Like Taako. Taako and his nine deaths he doesn’t remember. None of it makes sense.

“But you’re dead.” Barry is babbling. “You’re dead, right? You have to remember. Please, Kravitz, I’ve been alone for so long. You’re dead, you’re supposed to remember, that’s how this _works_ , it doesn’t make sense—“

“Shut up,” Kravitz says. The lich is acting like he knows him, like he knows something about Kravitz that he doesn’t know himself—does he, could he, is that possible? Could he be some missing puzzle piece to Kravitz’ long-forgotten past? But no, no, that just can’t do, won’t stand—who does this lich think he is? “Barry Bluejeans, you have broken the laws of life and death. You will return with me to the astral plane, or I will have no choice but to—“

“Oh, hell,” Barry mutters, and vanishes.

Kravitz whirls around on instinct, as if maybe he will be standing behind him.

He is met, instead, by a different familiar face: Taako, with Magnus and Merle right behind him, all of them looking suitably surprised with the scene they’ve stumbled into.

For a moment, all four of them stand in stunned silence.

“Uh,” Kravitz says, and his first instinct is to just leave, because the lich is gone and maybe if he starts moving now he can find it again, but Taako is there and Kravitz had actually kind of been hoping he’d have the chance to see him again, so he’ll have to explain this eventually anyways. “Hey.”

“So,” Taako says, “I’m assuming you’re _not_ the guy who’s gone all wild with the—“ And Taako’s voice dissolves into static. 

“The what?”

“Mm, yeah, taking that as a no. So, lovely to see you babe, kind of confused about what you’re doing here?”

“I’m—“ Kravitz says. “I _was_ hunting a lich. He seems to have disappeared.”

“A lich,” Taako echoes.

It knew Kravitz’ name, it was at the Millers’ lab. “You might have seen it before?” Kravitz says. “The… the first time we met.” Merle mutters something to Magnus that Kravitz can’t hear. “Bright red robe, hard to miss.”

“Oh,” Taako says, and then pauses. “Yeah, I think we might just know the guy you’re talking about. He—“

“Taako,” Magnus hisses. “What are you doing?”

Taako rounds on Magnus. “The guy asked a question.”

“You know this lich?” Kravitz interrupts.

“More or less?” Taako says. “He’s shown up a couple of times. Had some super mysterious shit to say.”

“But we didn’t understand any of it and we don’t know where he is now,” Magnus says. “And I really don’t see how it’s important, or why we should be telling _you_ any of this.”

Merle has been eying Kravitz silently, letting Taako take the lead, but now he speaks up. “So, have you seen a guy go by wearing a big fancy magical necklace?”

Kravitz doesn’t know what to make of this change of subject. “No?”

“That’s what _we’re_ hunting,” Merle says.

“And you haven’t seen the lich recently?” Kravitz confirms, because the tone in Magnus’ voice suggests that he’s hiding _something_ but Kravitz really doesn’t know what.

“We have not,” Taako confirms. “But, hey, I mean, if you want, you can stick around, help us look for this thing.”

“I…” Kravitz wants to say yes. He doesn’t even know why, but he wants to, but he can’t. “No.” He steps back. “I should probably get going. See if I can’t still track this thing down.”

“Right,” Taako says.

Kravitz summons a rift. He looks at Taako. “It was… nice running into you?”

Taako puts a hand to his ear and mouths _Call me_.

Kravitz vanishes into the astral plane.

***

In the end, it was the three of them: Kravitz, Taako, and Magnus. Lup had wanted to come too, but it would have meant the team on the material plane losing _both_ their wizards, and Davenport simply wouldn’t have that.

Kravitz was flying the ship. It wasn’t the first time, not by a long shot, but it wasn’t something he made a habit of and his hands were clumsy on the controls as they left the material plane, and their friends, behind them.

The worst part of this plane, of course, was that if things went really wrong it would be on Kravitz to make sure they got out of there at all.

Kravitz took a deep breath, and loosened his grip on the controls. There was no use in getting unduly stressed out. The astral plane glittered in front of the ship, not far off now, and Kravitz eased the Starblaster forward and—

They were in.

Dusky gray light filled the landscape, emanating from nowhere in particular. The sky lacked any sun or stars or moon. Kravitz took the ship in for a landing, and it hit the rocky ground with a low thud that made him tense up.

“So what do we do now?” Magnus said, from behind him, and Kravitz stared at the foggy landscape outside the ship without answering. He had no idea how to answer Magnus’ question.

Some part of him hadn’t really thought he’d get this far.

“Now, we go exploring,” Taako said. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Kravitz managed. “Yes. We should—move slowly, though. I’m not sure this space is even really, ah… built to support physical existence?” This was a terrible idea, wasn’t it? He’d somehow convinced everyone that it wasn’t, but it _was_ , and now he and his friends were going to pay the price.

“Krav?” Taako prompted, after a moment of silence. Kravitz was still sitting in the pilot’s seat, frozen.

“Maybe we should just leave,” Kravitz heard himself say. “This is—it’s too soon. I have no idea what could happen if we go out there, if our bodies will—will collapse into energy, or if—“

“Listen, dude,” Taako said. He offered Kravitz a hand, and pulled him to his feet. “I won’t pretend to really understand what you wanted to get out of this, but now that we’re here there’s no fucking way I’m leaving. If I don’t come back next cycle with a million great ghost adventure stories to tell Lup, I don’t think I’ll be able to live with myself.”

Kravitz smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s… let’s try this, yeah?” Start simple. Don’t get too hung up on what-ifs.

They left the Starblaster’s deck, and headed down. The airlock opened with a rush, and then the gray mist was staring them in the face. The gray wasn’t quite uniform, though—faint glowing forms flitted through it, this way and that.

Kravitz stared out into it. It was beautiful, really. Calm, and quiet, and… Something he didn’t quite have the words to describe. Like nothing he’d ever seen, even after all these years. Something new, at last.

Magnus, beside him, stepped forward, onto the ground—only something was off, his form blurred. Not by obscuring fog, but by the very fabric of the space around them. And in his chest was a glowing form, soft but bright, the same as the ones flying through the air—

And it clicked. The shapes around them, _surrounding_ them, were the souls of the dead.

That first cycle in the astral plane was spent mostly observing, sitting back in awe and looking at the world around them. They didn’t go far from the Starblaster—it was easy to lose one’s sense of direction, and the fear of getting lost completely was enough to compel even Magnus to stay close.

Kravitz took notes. Scientific observations, but more than that, too. Notes on the way the lights danced through the space, on the way things started to lose meaning after too long outside the ship. Lucretia wasn’t there; he’d give these to her, after. The record had to be kept.

The next cycle, Lucretia did come, along with Barry. Not for the whole time—the Light of Creation was proving difficult to find, and she wound up returning to the material plane only a few months in. This astral plane was different: they found no rocky ground to land on. Just endless, empty air, and souls, glowing, alive. Sometimes Kravitz thought he could see people, in the mist, coherent shapes with the lights located in their hearts. Sometimes he thought he heard voices.

He was up on deck, early one morning, when he heard it, clearer than usual. He still couldn’t quite make out the words, but any noise at all was hard to ignore.

“Hello?” Kravitz called out. The sound echoed.

There was no response. He went back to his notes.

“Who’s there?”

Kravitz looked up sharply. There was no visible source of the voice, but he’d heard it clearly.

“Hello,” he said again.

Barry appeared at the top of the stairs. “Who are you talking to?”

“A ghost, I think,” Kravitz said.

“You’re different from the others,” said the disembodied voice.

Barry spun around, searching for the source of the voice. “Holy shit, dude.”

“Yeah,” Kravitz hissed, “now shut up or you’ll scare her off.” Louder: “Who’re the others?”

“The other—oh. Huh. I only just consciously thought about that. The other dead people, I suppose.”

Kravitz’ heart pounded. He was talking to a dead person. Not just someone who had died and come back, not like him and his Starblaster family, but someone who was actively, currently dead.

“Different how?” Barry prompted, crossing the deck.

“You’re very, mm, solid,” said the ghost. “The others are all... I don’t know, jumbled up? All mixed together, memories upon memories. You’re different.”

“That’s true,” Kravitz said, and as he peered out into the fog he saw her: a humanoid form, ghostly-clear, watching him from not too far off. He elbowed Barry and pointed. “You’re different, too, though, aren’t you?”

“I’m just new, I think. You two are something else.”

“We’re alive,” Barry said. Kravitz supposed there was no use in beating around the bush.

“Huh,” she said. “Okay, wasn’t expecting that one.”

“Do you have a name?” Kravitz asked.

“Nadiya Jones,” she said. “How did you get here if you’re alive?”

That was the conversation that started it. This slow, strange friendship of theirs. They learned more about her, gradually. Nadiya was a human woman, for starters. She’d died in battle, only a few weeks ago. (“Not my finest moment, I’ll admit, but I’ve had a pretty good run of it.”) In return, Kravitz and Barry told her bits and pieces about himself, and the IPRE, and what they knew of the planes. But the most important thing that they learned was this: Nadiya was a scientist, too. And, given a lack of pretty much anything else to do, she was just as interested as they were in figuring out how exactly the whole death thing really worked.

They talked over what she remembered about dying, and reappearing here (not a lot). About how she perceived the world around them (mostly the same as they did, although she did seem to be able to understand more of the other ghosts’ whispering than either Kravitz or Barry). They discussed the way she seemed to get more solid the more she spoke with them (and the way they got less so the further they got from the ship). They took observations. They experimented. Could Nadiya pick things up? No. Could she phase through walls? Things? People? It varied. Did magic work on her? Not usually.

There was one thing they didn’t try, as many times as they talked it through, and that was the question of whether or not she could leave the astral plane without dissolving.

Barry thought she couldn’t. “She’s incorporeal,” he argued over dinner one night. “I’ve done reading on necromancy and stuff, Kravitz, she’d need some physical form to inhabit.”

“But traditional necromancy doesn’t account for any of this,” Kravitz said. Nadiya wasn’t with them right now; she was rarely able to hold a solid form for an entire day, and it was rapidly approaching evening by the ship’s clock. “If we can exist here, she can exist in the material plane.”

Barry shook his head. “I... don’t think that necessarily follows. It’s always easier to make living things closer to dead than dead things closer to living. The same principle applies here.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“You can’t prove that I’m wrong.”

He couldn’t. And they couldn’t experiment, either. The risk was too high if Kravitz was wrong.

Then the Hunger came. Kravitz glanced out the window, and there it was, looming on the horizon.

Shit. Had it really been a year already? Had the others found the light? No time to contact them. They had to get moving, and now.

Kravitz raced to the deck. He passed Barry on the way up. “You get us moving,” he said, “I’ve got to try to find her.”

Barry nodded, and then he was off to the controls. Kravitz looked out into the mists of the astral plane, the dark opal of the Hunger sweeping closer overhead. “Nadiya!” he shouted.

For a moment, there was nothing. No reaction. Then she was there.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she asked. “This is what you’ve been talking about.”

“It is,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

He led her down into the rooms of the Starblaster, for the first and last time. There was a chance he could save her. A chance this would work.

As they soared out of the plane, Nadiya braced for an impact that didn’t come. She was still there. And then all three of them were shouting, laughing, celebrating.

And then they passed out of the planar system completely, and the cycle reset. The eight of them were standing there. Nadiya was gone.

He’d thought there’d been a chance. Souls operated under different rules than physical bodies, even if Kravitz no longer knew exactly where that dividing line fell. There had been a chance that at last they’d found someone they could save.

It didn’t work.

But there was more work to be done, more experiments. Losing Nadiya hurt more than he’d expected it to, but he had to believe there was a chance he could crack this. He needed to figure out how the robot’s crystal worked. There was a way of doing it—maybe it had to do with trapping the soul in an object? Inanimate objects could pass through the reset unaffected. But they still didn’t fully understand the mechanism by which the reset even happened. There was too much to do. There was so much, and somehow even with all the time they had, it wasn’t enough.

Somewhere along the way, the splitting up became a given. Usually they waited until around halfway through the year, to make sure things were at least kind of stable, and then a handful of the crew would head over to the astral plane to help with Kravitz’ pet project. Some cycles, when they found the Light early, it was all of them. Those were some of the best years. Sometimes it was none of them; sometimes saving the world in the immediate sense took priority. Sometimes it was just whoever volunteered.

Taako rarely did so, after that first time. The first few months of every cycle were full of sloppy make-out sessions in Starblaster’s backrooms, and if it was an odd rhythm for a relationship to take Kravitz didn’t especially mind.

It was cycle 89 when Kravitz pulled away from a kiss and said, “Come with me.”

“Where are we going, now?”

“I mean—“ Maybe now wasn’t the right time, but he’d already said it. “To the astral plane, this cycle. I want you to be there. Just the two of us.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Taako said with a laugh.

And it was that easy.

As they flew in on the Starblaster, a landscape took form around them: a grassy landscape, and a lake, and an island. The colors were dull, and the light that illuminated the scene seemed to come from no sun, but as Kravitz stepped out onto the grass, there was a solidity to it that he didn’t know what to make of. It wasn’t the first time Kravitz had encountered an astral plane that had a very material look to it, but it was the first one where he’d seen what looked looked a manmade structure: a dark-stoned fortress stood on the island.

The first few weeks passed about as expected. Taako feigned a polite interest in Kravitz’ research, and Kravitz reveled in Taako’s cooking.

About a month into their residency, in the middle of what passed for night, the lights flickered on overhead, sputtered, sparked, and died.

The Starblaster was nonoperational.

The lights didn’t work, the heating didn’t work. When, in a panic, Kravitz tested it, the engine wouldn’t start.

And it didn’t make sense, really, because the damn thing didn’t even run on electricity in the conventional sense. It ran on bonds, but something—some presence on this plane—was screwing with the processes by which these bonds became thrust, and Kravitz and Taako were grounded.

The entire team was.

A dark shape outside the window.

Kravitz blinked. And then, there—a flash of movement, a black-robed figure moving through the mist. Kravitz stood. Who the hell—? And then they were gone.

Kravitz made his way to the deck, and looked down at the landscape around him, gray and still as ever. But no, there; approaching the castle, the silhouette of a person. Kravitz watched, suddenly unsure what to do. As the shadowy figured continued, he could’ve sworn he caught for just a moment the sight of their face beneath their cloak. It was nothing but raw white bone.

“Did you see that?” Kravitz said.

“What?”

“That—I think it was a person—“ (cold white bones, a dark cloak)

The figure turned, and its empty sockets stared straight into Kravitz’ eyes.

Fuck.

“I don’t—“ Taako broke off. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

None of them moved. Then, “Hey skelly!” Taako shouted.

The figure approached. “You are not supposed to be here,” he said, his accented voice full of gravitas. “But now that you are here, you cannot be allowed to leave.” He put his hand on the side of the Starblaster, and the overhead lights flickered once again. A display of power.

“Uh,” Kravitz said.

“Well, that’s awfully rude,” Taako said.

The figure was silent a moment, and then said, “You have been informed of the terms. Try not to make trouble.”

And he left.

The ship was still broken.

“This isn’t good,” Kravitz muttered.

“I’d say.”

Kravitz took a deep breath and turned away from edge of the ship, towards the doorway that led to the lower decks. “We should check out the bond engine,” he said. “See where the source of problem is.” Whatever that Grim Reaper fellow did, it was still a physical object. Magic was only so powerful.

So he and Taako headed down to the engine room, where the bond engine sat, inert. Kravitz hadn’t seen it like this since before the mission started, and then only once. It was rather unsettling.

“Okay,” he said, aloud. “Okay. If we just check the wiring—“ It wasn’t the wiring. “Or the magnifier—“ Everything was physically intact. Kravitz let out a huff and stared at the huge machine. _Something_ had to be broken, or else why wasn’t it working?

But then—“The magical indexer!” The engine was mostly physical, but certain systems were sped up by use of magic, and there were backup systems but if the tampering was an especially unconventional kind of spell they might not have fired up right away—

“I love you,” Taako said.

Kravitz stopped, and turned, and stared, tried to read Taako’s expression, but it was as guarded as ever.

They’d been “dating” for half a century, and it was only now that Kravitz realized he’d never heard Taako say that before. Not in so many words.

“I mean like,” Taako rushes on, “you know, ‘cause you’re all smart and everything. Gonna get us out of here.” He paused. Kravitz stared into his eyes, trying to pick apart why looking at them made his heart _sing_. “I mean, it’s fine, I guess, it’s cool, you don’t have to—“

“Oh, shit, no, Taako.” Kravitz laughed. He took Taako’s hand, laced their fingers together on pure instinct. “I love you too. Of course I do. You’re…“ He stopped. _You’re beautiful_ , he wanted to say, but that didn’t quite cover it. _You’re amazing_ , he could have said, but that wasn’t it either. _I think I was in love with you from the first time we met_ , he almost said, but it was cheesy and ridiculous and…

And Taako’s hand was warm in his and they might die for real this time, so he said it.

Their faces were so close now that he only had to whisper it, and then Taako pulled him in, and kissed him, and it wasn’t the first time but it might as well have been.

The lights flickered on as the bond engine hummed to life.

For a moment, they both sat there, in silence.

Then Taako was on his feet, shouting, “Fuck yes! Take that, Lup and Barry! How’s that for some soulmate shit?”

***

As Kravitz takes a defensive stance against the invisible _thing_ attacking, he’s brought to a halt by the sight of two beams of light streaking across the sky, cutting through the darkness that’s surrounded the Astral Plane. For just a second, he pauses, staring at them.

The creature attacks, and Kravitz spins; he can tell that something’s there, something not-quite-alive, but he can’t see it with his eyes, can’t seem to wrap his mind around the thing the way he should be able to. He has a plan, he can make this work, but he can’t cut through this darkness—can’t get anywhere—and so right now all he can do is stand and fight.

And then the green light touches down, paints the world in shining emerald.

And Kravitz _remembers._

The Hunger is all around him, here on the astral plane, and this isn’t a time for celebration but he laughs out loud anyways. All of it comes back, and it’s strange because its his own memories and the others’ and no one’s all mixed together in a near-incomprehensible jumble, and it hurts his head to try to grasp it all at once but he doesn’t _care_ , because he knows them again, all seven of them, and he knows that he found them again, against the odds. Merle, and Magnus, and _Taako_. The person he spent thirty years pining over and as many loving, and Kravitz laughs as the the world ends because it isn’t often that your first date is your hundredth.

A humanoid figure made of black Hunger comes at him with a sword, and Kravitz parries with the scythe (not the most effective tool for the job, maybe, but he’s learned to make it work), and a million thoughts race through his head at once as he stands his ground.

Blue light, and music: a song like nothing he’s ever heard.

A portal opens. It reeks of the material plane, and Kravitz steps through—

and there is Taako. Charming, beautiful, funny Taako.

“Well,” Kravitz says, “this is awkward, isn’t it?”

And then Taako’s kissing him.

Someone coughs loudly, and Kravitz glances over Taako’s shoulder and sees them—Barry and Lup, the latter afire in her spectral lich form. Barry is alive, and Kravitz doesn’t know how, and Lup is _back_ , and he doesn’t know how, but, gods, is it good to see them.

“What…” Kravitz tries to search for the right question. “What happened? Taako, how did you even _do_ that?”

And they tell him, in bits and pieces, and he still doesn’t know the full picture, still doesn’t quite understand how this got them to Phandalin, turned sapphire. But it isn’t important, and there isn’t time.

And then Taako says, “Krav, there’s—there’s something else you should know about. There has been… a terrible loss.”

With a twitch of his wand, some spell drops, and something in Taako’s face _shifts_. It’s… almost imperceptible, but not quite. Something different, something strange and less Elven and ever-so-slightly less Taako.

But it’s still him. And he’s still talking, explaining.

“Taako,” Kravitz says. “I’ve known you for… for over a hundred years now. I… Fuck, I mean, we ran into each other in quite possibly the worst imaginable situation for getting together, and I still… I was crazy about you. I love you, Taako. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“Yeah,” Taako says, “love you too. That was actually a test, by the way, your face is a skull half the time now.”

Kravitz laughs.

“Hey, I mean, welcome to the club,” Barry says.

It’s the four of them, standing there at the end of the world, a fragile, beautiful reunion.

And then Lucas’ lab explodes, and the Judge is looming on the horizon, and there’s Legion, and it’s all very dramatic, and it’s Lup who says, “Kravitz, you do know we’re going to have to talk about the fact that you’re, like, literally the Grim Reaper, right?”

Kravitz turns. “I’ll tell you about it _after_ we save the world.”

***

Lup disappeared.

 _Back soon_ , said the note, and while Barry started spouting anxieties the minute he found it, everyone else was in agreement: she would be back, like she said. It was odd of her to leave, but, come on, this was Lup. She could handle herself.

Then days began to slip towards weeks without any word from her. They started looking. Barry brought research, piles of notes on possible instances of phoenix-fire glassings, and the whole crew started searching.

They went in pairs, down to the surface, to look for her. Kravitz went with Taako, but it didn’t feel like enough. They never found much of anything. Sometimes they heard a whisper or a rumor of the gauntlet, something that felt like a lead, but always it dissolved into nothing.

Weeks began to slip towards months. Lup was gone. One by one, they abandoned the search. Taako showed no sign of giving up, though, so how could Kravitz? If going with him on these trips did something to help comfort his grieving partner, then he’d do it. Even if it was looking more and more pointless.

Now, Taako was looking at the map of the region they were in and muttering to himself. Kravitz watched him, thinking that he should say something, but there was nothing he could do to help. Taako’s sister was missing, and Kravitz didn’t have a solution to that.

Taako pushed the map across the table in frustration. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “By all accounts that was the right town, but it doesn’t fit any of the info we had going in.” He probably shouldn’t have sounded so disappointed to learn that an entire town of people hadn’t died after all. But Kravitz was willing to forgive it, in this particular instance. Taako sighed. “Back to square one.”

And yet. And yet. And yet.

Now was the time to say it, wasn’t it?

“Taako.” He had his attention. “I… I don’t want to sound dismissive, but I think it might be time to consider the idea that we’re not going to find her.”

It was a week, after that, before Taako would even speak to him again.

And, hell, maybe it would be healthier for Taako if he could start trying to move on, but the look of betrayal on his face when Kravitz had said that—it wasn’t worth it.

Kravitz stood, in the hallway of the Starblaster, just off the deck. Davenport had said he’d seen Taako head up there, and Kravitz needed to talk to him, to say something, but now that he was here he hesitated. He ran through the words in his head again: _I’m sorry I did’t mean it I should have thought about what I was saying I love you I love you I love you_.

Kravitz heard Barry say, “Taako, what if she’s just gone?”

Kravitz took a step forward—

“Who?”

—and stumbled, fell to his knees as the world around him dissolved into meaninglessness, shapes and forms that made a floor and a hallway but nothing that made sense when he tried to look at it. A ship that wasn’t a ship. Voices, ahead of him, shouting now. The sound of some magic explosion. An unplaceable sense of loss.

The next thing Kravitz remembered clearly, he was in Hillfrost.

It wasn’t somewhere he’d ever spent a lot of time (or was it—he lived here, didn’t he?). He was in Hillfrost, and there was some cushy academic job he’d been offered, but the university had shut its doors yesterday. There was a war on, after all.

And the Relic Wars had come to Hillfrost, because they’d come everywhere, and then the university was entombed in plants, knots of vines with poisoned spikes, and Kravitz didn’t know who was wielding the relic or what it meant (he should know its name, shouldn’t he? hadn’t he, at one point?) but the plants devoured everything, everyone. Kravitz died on his third (it had to be more than that, didn’t it?) day in Hillfrost, knocked back by a huge tree-creature as he reached for a weapon he didn’t have. It hurt to breath, and then it just _hurt_. And then—

Then the pain stopped, and time stood still, and there was a voice in Kravitz’ head.

It was offering him a job.

***

“You’re not from this world. And, so, technically speaking, that means I’m not _your_ Raven Queen. But you will always be my Kravitz.”

(Later—much later—it occurs to him for the first time to look himself up in the records. _Kravitz, times died: nine. Times escaped astral plane: nineteen. Times escaped astral plane: zero._ He has to stop himself from laughing aloud.)

***

Kravitz didn’t remember a lot about his old life. He had some vague images of a childhood in some city he couldn’t recall the name of; a half a sense that he spent a long time in school. Not much else. He thought it must have been a long time ago indeed.

***

It’s the first time in a decade that the eight of them have been in a room at the same time.

They're back at the Bureau headquarters (and finally Kravitz can understand it, can look at the thing without his head feeling like its full of buzzing insects). It’s far from neutral ground, but it’s all they’ve got. As the sun sets on the Day of Story and Song, Kravitz steps out of the rift.

He has maybe ten seconds to take in the sight of the B.o.B. quad before he hears someone shout his name, and then there they are: Merle (he still has that soulwood arm, and its Kravitz’ fault, and even though they’ve spoken more recently than some its strange to see him so changed) and Magnus (who has Kravitz in a hug before he can even think of anything to say) and Davenport (who, in everything, Kravitz realized he’d lost track of completely; he smiles at Kravitz and it’s a smile he hasn’t seen in a decade) and Barry (he waves at Kravitz, and says little else, and doesn’t need to) and Lup (still ethereal and undead, standing so close to Barry she almost passes through him and looking more alive than any of them) and Taako (charming, beautiful, funny Taako) and—

Lucretia.

Standing alone, just apart from the group. Her hair is a stark white Kravitz has never seen on her before, and she’s staring at him like she’s just seen a ghost.

As the others start to chatter, and joke, and laugh, she takes hesitant steps towards him. She reaches up a hand, and then holds it there, frozen. “Kravitz,” she says. Then, her voice hard: “You died.”

“Yeah,” Kravitz says. “It’s not as if it was the first time.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She says, “It’s the first time it was my fault.”

In retrospect, Kravitz can’t argue that. He shrugs.

He’d never thought of it that way. In the rollercoaster of emotions that the last five or so hours have been, it hadn’t occurred to him to think about what she did, what she _took_. Maybe if he’d thought about it more, he’d be angry. But…

But Kravitz had known there were pieces of his story missing. He’d been fine with that. Getting it back was unexpected gift, and in a strange, nonlinear way, Lucretia is responsible for that, too.

“I’m sorry,” Lucretia says. “I—I already said that, to the others, but you weren’t here then. I thought you were…”

“I know,” Kravitz says. “And I know you’re sorry.”

There’s a warm hand on his shoulder, and Taako’s voice, saying, “Hey, Krav, can I talk to you?”

Kravitz turns; Lucretia nods politely and ducks away. Taako’s gaze, hard as steel, lingers on her for just a moment longer, and then flicks towards Kravitz.

Taako opens his mouth, then closes it again without saying anything. “Okay, I’m gonna be real here, I didn’t actually have anything I needed to say. It’s just good to see you again.”

“You just saw me earlier today,” Kravitz says with a smile.

“Well, yeah,” Taako says, “but—and I don’t know if you noticed this—today has been kind of a whirlwind. Been kind of a wild ride of returning memories and a whole bunch of Hunger bullshit. We haven’t really had time to just… hang out.”

And suddenly it’s as if Kravitz is ninety years younger, standing on a beach with an elf he doesn’t yet know how to admit he’s in love with. “I'd like that,” he says.

Taako takes his hand.

And maybe Taako notices Kravitz’ hand is colder than it should be, and maybe Taako’s carries scars Kravitz doesn’t recognize. But he he takes his hand anyways. He always will.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm confusedbluesky on tumblr & twitter if you want to come shout about podcasts with me


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